As The Moon Melts
by hurryinsidethephonebox
Summary: Aurora's your typical, angsty orphan. She's spent all 15 years dealing with the iron fist of her caretaker, her only parental figure being Uncle Jack. Jack has always been there for her...but he's been keeping a secret, and it's time Aurora found out the truth. With this truth, Aurora will see that she isn't as ordinary as she thought. In fact, she's completely out-of-this-world.
1. Chapter 1

Strange things were happening in Cardiff.

The mid-April weather had reached a new all-time high, surpassing any temperature that had been recorded in the summer months of the past 50 years. Even though it was well past mid-day, the scorching hot sun beat down on the pavement relentlessly as a girl donning a generic school uniform hurried down the street. Shoes in hand, the girl's bare feet padded against the warm ground with each bounding leap she took.

"Ugh! This bloody heat!" the girl groaned, pulling her mop of golden blonde hair off her neck.

The messy bun it now resided in bounced as she turned the last corner, her destination now in sight: Saint Mildred's Home for Orphaned Girls. Not much was known about the orphanage, other than that it was large, old, and had once been a warehouse used for storing machinery during the war. The outside nearly looked the same as it did back then aside from the vibrant green vines now swirling up the faded brick exterior, giving the building a mystical look that stuck out amongst the more modernized businesses of Cardiff. The owner, Madame Sofie, had tried to liven the historic building up with a flower bed, but even the homely yellow of tulips and familiar rose petal fragrance couldn't rid the impending doom the girl felt as she creaked open the mahogany door of her prison.

"Miss Aurora!"

The shrill voice of Madame Sofie pierced through the girl's eardrums nearly the second she stepped over the threshold. Madame Sofie was a middle-aged woman, about 47, who had recently taken over the orphanage and had since made it her personal goal to make Aurora's life as miserable as possible. As if being abandoned by her mother and growing up never knowing her father wasn't enough, Aurora was now pestered with a strict daily schedule that required almost all of her time outside of school to be spent cooped up in the stuffy warehouse under the scornful eye of her caretaker.

"Mind telling me where you have been?" Madame Sofie asked, the pointed toe of her heels tapping against the hardwood flooring. The sound echoed back from the old warehouse walls, making Madame Sofie seem even more intimidating.

Aurora dug her heels into the welcoming mat and held herself against Madam Sofie's glower. The blonde teen was sure that beneath the unusually tinted sunglasses adorning Madame Sofie's face were two beady, black eyes ablaze with fury; but there was no way Aurora was going to let the old hag beat her down again.

"I was at the library," the teen spat. "I needed to stay out of this hell hole for a while longer."

Madame Sofie's hands flew to her pointy little hips.

"We do _not_ use that sort of language, young lady." She growled. "But I'll be kind enough to let you off with a warning this time. You've already missed supper, so you can go on to bed feeling hungry."

Aurora knew she'd gotten off easy this time; usually her caretaker would have punished her with a few good lashings on the bottom, and Aurora certainly wasn't going to stick around long enough for the atrocious woman to change her mind. She bounded up the staircase, taking two steps at a time to ensure that she got away from Madame Sofie as quickly as possible.

Aurora's bare feet padded against worn carpeting as she trudged down the upstairs corridor that lead towards her room. Suddenly, she was stopped dead in her tracks by a strange and low metallic humming. The humming grew closer and closer, louder and louder until finally it disappeared without a trace of explanation, leaving Aurora standing dumbfounded between the two walls of faded floral wallpaper. Though Aurora knew the sound was unlike anything she had ever heard before, yet a sense of familiarity tugged at the back of her mind. She stood rooted to the floor, mulling over any possible explanation for the bizarre noise's origin. Maybe it had come from the furnace downstairs, she pondered? No, the humming had seemed to zoom right over her head, and the furnace was located below her. Plus, the ripple she'd heard had sounded so supernatural…alien like, even. Aurora's mind buzzed with a frenzy of queries, each coming up short until finally giving up. Whatever the sound was, it was gone now, leaving the corridor in a spookily dead silence.

"Rory? Y'all right?"

The silence was shattered by a tiny, childlike voice that startled Aurora so much she jumped, nearly knocking over one of the many antique crystal vases that lined the hallway (another one of Madame Sofie's failed attempts at modernizing the tasteless little orphanage).

"Relax, it's just me." the voice sighed, and Aurora turned around to see that it belonged to a girl around her own age, with a firey red mane of hair and a name that escaped Aurora's already spinning mind.

"I'm alright." Aurora responded, mustering up a nearly-convincing smile.

The girl, Rosalind she recalled, gave Aurora a reassuring beam and set off skipping down the corridor. How anyone could remain so chipper in a place like Saint Mildred's was beyond Aurora's comprehension.

Trying to keep her mind from returning back to the bizarre noise, Aurora's mind wandered in an attempt to entertain itself. She imagined walking down the corridor backwards, hopping on one leg, even blindfolded. It wasn't like Aurora was dependent on sight to find her way; she knew the course to that very last room on the left by heart. After all, she'd only spent all 15 years of her life confined to it. A grimace spread to Aurora's lips as she reached out for the tarnished doorknob.

As soon as the door creaked open, Aurora sensed something was off-kilter. The room was so small that it was nearly impossible to keep tidy but her room had never been in the chaotic disarray it was now.

Clobber was tossed all across the room haphazardly, covering every inch of the pale yellow carpeting. The chipping white desk that sat in the corner had been ripped of its drawers, their contents scattered across the bed that lay beside it. The film advertisements, paintings, and band posters Aurora had spent so many hours tacking up had been stripped down, exposing the faded and tearing purple wall paper beneath.

"What the…?" Aurora gasped, stepping into the war zone that had once been her bedroom.

As Aurora further inspected the chaos, she noticed that her one and only window had been left wide open, something she never did. It was then that she knew it was an outside job. Someone had obviously trashed the place, but the thing puzzling her was who? And more importantly, why? What did she have that someone so desperately needed that they would climb through a second story window for?

Thankfully nothing seemed to be missing, but that hardly offered comfort to the shaken teen. With a sigh Aurora knelt beside a pile of scattered papers and began to stack them back into order, still puzzled.

With her mind swirling around possible answers, Aurora lost track of time and worked well past the sunset. The faint luminescence of moonlight seeping through her window and impending threat of curfew checks was the only thing to cease her cleaning frenzy. Aurora tossed the last dirty shirt into her hamper and climbed into bed, her brain thankful for a rest.

She'd spent most of the past few hours of cleaning still agonizing over who could have done this and why, but no real explanation had presented itself. Aurora had, however, decided against reporting the incident to Madame Sofie. The closest thing to an answer she'd acquired was that it was all a poorly executed prank pulled on her by the other girls in the orphanage, and Aurora nearly chuckled as she envisioned Madame Sofie's expression if Aurora were to share her theory with the stern caretaker.

"Your untidiness is hardly justification for blaming these perfectly innocent girls, Miss Aurora. No supper for a week!" Aurora mocked in Madame Sofie's shrill shriek.

The theory made sense; Aurora preferred to keep her nose buried in a sketchpad rather than discuss the newest celebrity gossip or where one could purchase a pair of Louboutin shoes for half-price, which had caused her to never quite form a bond with any of the orphanage's other prisoners. She was often the butt of their disapproving gossip and whispers and Aurora was sure they would it just hilarious to destroy the "freak's bedroom.

Deciding it would do her no good to ponder on such depressing matters, Aurora flicked off her lamp and lay back beneath the sheets. Almost the moment her head made contact with the pillow, Aurora's eyes fluttered shut and she was whisked away into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

Aurora was running.

From what, she wasn't sure. As she raced through a labyrinth of decaying trees, her eyes desperately struggled to adjust to the endless black environment. Aurora searched for any landmarks that would give insight on where she was, but everything remained frustratingly out of focus. Twigs and branches scratched at her bare feet, tearing the flesh without remorse as she stumbled over fallen logs littering the forest floor. Despite the pain, she knew she had to keep running.

A menacing snarl came from the aphotic abyss, and Aurora realized with despair that she was not alone. Aurora dodged a whipping tentacle as it made a grab for one of her golden curls. Her unfocused eyes caught small glimpses of scaly claws and grotesque tentacles grappling at the tree trunks as she bounded down her unkempt path.

Suddenly, something pierced through the pitch darkness. A dim, blueish light gleamed off in the distance, floating just a few feet above the ground. The light was not alone, however. It illuminated the ground beneath it, revealing something even more unusual than macabre monsters and endless forests: a big, blue phone box hovering in mid-air!

Aurora was unsure why, but the sight of the distant object washed a sense of breathtaking hope over her body. Something inside her mind sparked, yelping screaming out with recognition. She knew this box! Her body screamed for her to remember, but Aurora had no idea where the sudden insight had come from. All she knew was that her bones ached with longing for the strange box. The little blur of light atop the contraption pulled at her heart, urging her to run faster. She ran and ran until the legs beneath her burned in protest and her bruised feet were bleeding freely. But, despite all her effort, neither the light nor box seemed to be getting any closer.

As Aurora dodged yet another thrashing spiked appendage, the light finally began to grow larger. Its blaze slowly approached the girl, warping the scene around her. The darkness was twisted and churned like smoke until the entire forest was engulfed in a white-hot flash. The jet of light destroyed everything in its path, including Aurora. She let out an agonizing wail as her body crumpled to the mossy ground, the smoldering inferno of light searing every inch of her body as it passed over her like a sonic boom.

All of Aurora's breath left in an excruciating rush as the world slowly became nothing but blinding white light. Everything was on fire. Worst of all; she could feel it all.

Each one of her nerve endings seemed to be firing at what felt like a billion times per second. She gasped in anguish as her still-coherent mind took everything in. _Everything_. Her skin bubbled, the frayed flesh rising along invisible currents before peeling off her arms and crumbling into a pile of insernated ash. The muscles beneath caught ablaze also. She watched in horror as her own meat healed and burned, healed and burned. One of her blood vessels fissured open to the air and the blood seeped out as if weightless, sizzling down to nothing but smoke. The furious flames devoured up her shoulders and her perfect golden locks, eating away at them like acid. Her eyelashes were singeing off also, making blinking odd and uncomfortable. The teen clenched her eyes shut and lay, paralyzed with pain, as her body slowly reduced itself to ash. This was it…this was the end.

Aurora bolted awake; the echo of her own screams still bouncing around her tiny bedroom's walls. Her throat was course and painful, the metallic taste of blood inside her mouth pulling her mind back to the dream. God, it had felt so real. The misery…the agony…watching her own flesh melt away. A shudder racked through her spine. She'd felt like an ant who'd been trapped in a microwave. She had truly believed she was going to die.

Only half relieved that she had not perished, Aurora's chocolate brown eyes shifted over to the alarm clock atop her old nightstand. Her groggy brain barely processed the 3:13 AM blinking back in bright green digital numbers.

"Great…" she grumbled, running a hand through the tangles in her hair.

The night terrors had become a regular occurrence; she would awaken at an ungodly hour, sweating and screaming, the haunting images still corroding away at her mind. The remnants of these nightmares would keep her from returning to sleep until the next night, when the whole ordeal would then repeat itself. Each night the dreams grew increasingly more disturbing, and this had been the worst they've ever gotten to. Deciding it wasn't even worth attempting to fall back asleep, Aurora slipped her feet into the warm wool slippers at the end of her bed and pulled herself back into the orphanage's musty upstairs corridor, her mind set solely on the raw state of her throat. She made her way to the kitchen, tiptoeing down the wright iron staircase to keep from waking Madame Sofie or any of the girls.

Saint Mildred's girls were hardly ever allowed to step foot into the kitchen, and thus Aurora had never realized just how hideous the room was. It was vast and lonely looking, with dirty tiled floor and nauseating green wallpaper. Chipping white counters surrounded the room, an old wood stove centered in the middle of them. To the right of the ancient appliance sat an industrialized eyesore of a fridge, which Aurora knew was full of half-expired milk and stale leftovers. The famished girl's stomach growled at the thought of food, but pushed the desire out of her mind. The food in that fridge would do more harm than good. Instead, Aurora dragged herself over to the nearest cabinet and peeled open the door. The rusting joints groaned out in protest, sending a piercing squeak echoing throughout the hallowed kitchen.

"Shhh!" Aurora whispered, as if scolding the inanimate object would keep it from blowing her cover.

She reached for one of the crystal drink glass residing atop the bottom shelf, standing on her tip-toes for optimum reaching capabilities. Once the glass was obtained, Aurora held it beneath the rusted sink tap, filling it to the brim with icy cold water. Just as she brought the glass to the edge of lips, a crashing noise stopped Aurora dead in her tracks.

The girl stood motionless, waiting for any following sounds but all that lingered was silence. Aurora's curiosity getting the best of her, she decided to investigate the origin of the crash. With the glass still in hand, she snuck around the corner and back into the foyer at the end of the stairs.

As soon as she reached the center of the foyer, a new sound began, this time recognizable as footsteps. At first she feared that she'd awoken Madame Sofie, but as the footsteps drew closer Aurora realized they smacked against the hardwood flooring far too heavily to belong to any of St. Mildred's females. The only male that worked at the insufferable home was George, the ancient and wheezing landscaper. He lived in a nearby town and only visited St. Mildred when yard work was required, and Aurora highly doubted there were any bushes that needed trimming at 3 o'clock AM.

Still curious, Aurora inched closer into the dark corridor. Her heart thudded boisterously inside her chest. She only made it half way in before the footsteps ceased, stopping Aurora also. After another few minutes of silence, Aurora began to wonder if she'd imagined the man's footsteps. She tightly clutched the crystal glass in her increasingly clammy hands and called out into the lightless corridor.

"H-hello?"

Suddenly, the floor beneath her was gone. Aurora was grabbed by the back of her shirt and wrenched backwards, tumbling off her feet. Before she had the time to blink, her shocked body was shoved roughly against a wall, her face crashing hard against the dusty wallpaper. The glass of water she had been holding clamored to her feet, shattering to bits and allowing the icy liquid to run free across the floor. Water seeped into Aurora's slippers as she struggled against the deathly strong grip.

"Let-me-go!"

Aurora kicked backwards, her foot making contact on her attacker's kneecap with a satisfying CRUNCH! But the man faltered only for a second before regaining his grip on Aurora. He jammed an elbow into her side and slammed her back against the wall hard enough to send blotches of darkness speckling across Aurora's eyesight. Aurora's ribs took the brunt of the impact, groaning in protest at her visitor's assault.

"What the fuck!" she cursed loudly, wincing in pain. "HELP! I-"

"Shut up!"

"Let me go right now!"

"I once killed a man with a paperclip and his own mustache. You really do _not_ want to mess with me, little girl."

The man's voice was deep and hostile, sending chills through Aurora's body. Resistance against her attacker seemed futile, and so she finally gave up the struggle. Her body went slack between the wall and the pair of hands' owner, a low whimper of defeat following the final shuffle of two bodies battling for dominance.

"Owen!"

A familiar voice called out from the darkness, followed by another storm of booted footsteps. The voice carried a slowly dying flashlight with it which gave off just enough light for Aurora to notice the small trickle of blood dripping onto her starched uniform shirt. Though she wasn't able to inspect exactly where the blood was coming from, Aurora sensed it had something to do with the throbbing aches tingling through her nose. As she reached to wipe the steam of crimson flowing from her face, the hands gripping her wrists tightened and tugged her to the side, trashing her back into the wall.

Now that Aurora was facing the proper way, she was able to get a good look at her assailant. As much as she hated to admit it, Aurora found the man to be fairly attractive. The faint light streaming from the side of her illuminated half his face, casting an eerie mystery across the other portion. Smooth skin stretched tightly over angular cheekbones and down to his thin lips which then morphed into a small scowl, bearing a bit of his teeth. A thick rim of black eyelashes covered his glossy black eyes. The large, coal coloured orbs bore into Aurora with a mix of hostility and curiosity as she struggled under their body's grip.

"Let her go, Owen," The familiar voice instructed.

Hearing the man again finally made the link click in Aurora's flustered mind. Beneath her assailant, Aurora turned her head in the direction of the voice. A tall and handsome man donning a navy blue military jacket stood before her, his slowly dying flashing illuminating the perfectly chiseled features of his face.

"_Uncle Jack_?" Aurora gasped.

"Hello, Aurora!" Jack replied with a charming smile before turning his attention to his niece's captor. "Owen, listen to me. She's harmless. Let her go."

Uncle Jack seemed to be some sort of authority figure to this Owen stranger; no sooner than the sentence left Jack's lips, Aurora's arms were released. Rubbing her sore limbs, she turned her attention back to her uncle and the confusing situation that lay before her.

Jack looked exactly as he had since the first time he'd appeared at the orphanage, claiming to be the long-lost sibling of a then-6-year-old Aurora's mother. Since then he had popped in every few months. The visits were always the same; Jack came bearing strange gifts and asking the same, routine questions in an attempt to catch up on the boring details of Aurora's life he'd missed in the time between visits. Despite their unenventfulness, Aurora had grown fond of the short meetings. Jack was the closest thing she would ever have to a father. The one thing that did bother Aurora, however, was how distant he seemed to be.

Jack always pretended to take interest in the mundane aspects of Aurora's daily life, but he never mentioned a word about himself or the family Aurora never knew, specifically her mother. Whenever Aurora brought the woman up in conversation, Jack would gracefully graze over the topic and move on to the next query on his list. The only information she'd gathered in the 9 years of his visits was that her mother's name was Rose, and Jack was her brother. Anything beyond that was off limits and slyly dodged.

It was always like a slap in the face when Jack avoided one of Aurora's questions. Jack knew every little thing about her; her favourite colour, the details of her first kiss, even the debilitating nightmares that haunted her at night, yet Aurora knew little to nothing about his life. She was painfully reminded of this as two strange women jogged up to join at either side of Jack.

"Jack, we-oh, who's this?" one of the women, a pretty Asian, questioned as her eyes skimmed over to the disheveled teenage girl.

Aurora suddenly felt self-conscious as the four pairs of eyes bore her down, examining every inch of her shaking body.

"Team, I would like you to meet Aurora." Jack said with a reassuring smile. His team looked surprised, as if they were familiar with her name but not the face that went along with it. "Owen was too quick to react and pinned her. She's not the one causing this."

"How do you know, Jack?" asked the other woman, a brunette, before turning to Aurora. "What are you doing down here?"

"I had a nightmare and came down for a drink of water!"

"Play nice," Jack warned. "I'll call Ianto to bring the car around. We're done here."

"Wait a minute, not so fast! I could ask you the same thing! What the hell are you doing, snooping around random buildings at night?" Aurora turned her attention to Jack. "I demand an explanation right now, starting with who the hell these people are!"

All friendliness and familiarity slipped from Jack's face at the question. Aurora backed back against the wall, intimidated by the group of shadowy strangers surrounding her. She looked up into Jack's eyes, desperate for reassurance that they meant no harm, but Jack's body language was all business.  
"We are Torchwood." Jack replied.

"…Torchwood? I'm sorry…_what_?"

"We are the division of Torchwood known as Torchwood Three. Basically, we are a trained team of alien hunters." Jack's voice was proud and boisterous.

"Ali-"

"Let me finish. In the middle of Cardiff there is a rift. A rift in time and space, and it has been acting strange lately. About an hour ago, we got a sky-rocketing reading of rift activity from this exact location, and so we set off in hopes of finding the culprit. You see, something is coming through. But whatever it is has found a way to somehow mask it's identity from our radars, leaving us completely clueless as to what's escaping into our world. And as defenders against this exact thing, I'm sure you can imagine just how dangerous this could be for us…and all of human kind."

Aurora thought back to her nightmare and the hideous, deformed creatures stalking through the darkness. A shudder racked down her spine and she nodded with all too much knowledge of the danger Cardiff citizens now faced.

"But…I still don't understand, Uncle Jack. What's this got to do with me? Why do these people know my name?"

Ignoring the raised eyebrows the title "Uncle" had stirred from his Torchwood teammates, Jack placed a comforting hand upon Aurora's shoulder. That spark of trustworthiness was back in his eyes: eyes that spoke of years and places far beyond his youthful appearance. He was once again the Jack Aurora had come to love.

"It's time you learned the truth."


	3. Chapter 3

_The truth?_

Aurora's heart stammered, her head replaying those two haunting words over and over again. _If there is truth to be told, then what was the lie?_

Aurora had needed little convincing from Jack and his gang before agreeing to accompany them back to their headquarters and learn this mysterious "truth". She now found herself in the backseat of a blacked out vehicle, wedged between the two women Jack had just introduced as Toshiko and Gwen. Toshiko, or Tosh as she seemed to prefer, was tapping away at a keyboard that had just swung swiftly into her lap. Numbers scrolled across the flat screen monitor faster than Aurora could understand, so she turned her attention to Gwen as she worked away at an identical computer. Luckily, hers was much easier to understand as it only displayed a map Aurora vaguely recognized as the Cardiff area. Uncle Jack sat in the front seat next to another man who seemed to be some sort of personal assistant or chauffer. Behind Aurora sat Owen, grumbling away a stream of profanities.

"You know, Owen, I _can_ hear you up here," Said Jack, cockiness practically oozing from his words.

"Yeah? Well good! Maybe you'll realize how rubbish of an idea this is, bringing a teenage girl into Torchwood hub! We don't know if she can be trusted!" Owen's calloused hands gripped the headrest of Aurora's seat, making her flinch as a flashback of the corridor incident jabbed at her mind.

"I know her, she's safe. Now drop it," Jack said, the tone of authority present in his voice again.

Owen growled another word that would have gotten him a prompt beating from Madame Sofie before slumping back in his seat, his arms folded across his chest like a pouting child.

"Uncle Jack?" Aurora questioned, her voice still shaky and weak.

She wasn't entirely sure why she'd called out his name, and the frightened girl regretted it instantly, as it brought another outburst from Owen.

"And that's the other thing!" he shouted, nearly rupturing Aurora's left eardrum. "What's this 'Uncle Jack' bullshit? You haven't got a niece! You haven't even got a family!"

Aurora's body went ice cold at the harsh words. Jack's body stiffened in the seat in front of her, his back straight with hostility. Even more questions raced through Aurora's head. _Has Uncle Jack been lying to me my entire life? Is this all part of the 'truth' I'm about to discover?_ Aurora thought to herself, her knuckles turning ghostly white as she dug the ends of her fingernails into her palms' soft flesh.

"There's a lot about me you don't know, Owen Harper."

The tone in Jack's voice was final, casting an uncomfortable silence over the atmosphere of the automobile. The six of them rode in that silence for the next several minutes, until the suit-clad chauffer pulled into a dimly lit parking garage. The way Uncle Jack had talked about Torchwood, Aurora had expected it to be the sort of lavish headquarters portrayed in the movies. Bullet-proof windows, steel exterior, body guards surrounding the premises, the whole nine yards. She couldn't help but be disappointed as the group of operatives approached Road Dahl Plass.

"Wh-what are we doing?" Aurora asked, confused.

Passerby's continued on their routes, completely oblivious to the group of sketchy-looking people huddled together right beside them. Jack smiled, giving Aurora's shoulder a positive squeeze just as Owen grumbled another "I can't believe we're doing this…"

The ground beneath them started to tremble, jolting Aurora with a shock of panic. The adults around her seemed completely indifferent to the shaking, even once the ground they stood upon began to descend into the Earth. Uncle Jack was mumbling something about perception filters as the patch of pavement continued to lower, but Aurora was far too distracted to really give the lecture a listen. She squeezed her eyes shut and fought back the wave of nausea rippling through her stomach as the group declined so far down Aurora was sure they'd start hitting the Earth's molten center soon.

Then suddenly, the movement stopped. Aurora peeked open one eye, completely unsure what sight she'd be greeted with.

"This," Uncle Jack said, the first to step from the platform and onto the stone floor beneath them. "Is the Hub."

Uncle Jack's hand fell from Aurora's shoulder, a proud Cheshire grin plastered across his face. He took a few steps forward, Aurora a lost puppy at his heels. She stood beside him and nervously twirled a golden blonde ringlet around her finger as Uncle Jack began barking orders to his employees.

"I'll get you all some drinks," Ianto offered, "What would you like? Coffee, tea, water?"

"Just…water, thanks." Aurora replied politely. She hated being waited on.

"Bring them to the conference room, Ianto. This way!"

Jack motioned for her to follow him, and Aurora reluctantly obliged.

She was then ushered into a decent-sized room with a large, oval table in the center and multiple flat-screen televisions placed along the walls. She took a seat in one of the office chairs; her head still a swirling buzz of emotion and questions. Jack took his seat beside her at the head of the table just as Ianto carried in a silver drink tray, his concentration never faltering even as Jack sent a flirty wink in his direction.

"Thanks." Aurora muttered once again as she took the glass of water from Ianto's offering hand.

The blonde pressed her lips to the plaster rim and closed her eyes in pleasure as the soothing liquid ran down her course throat. When she reopened her eyes she found Uncle Jack to be staring at her, his calloused hands clasped around a mauve colored coffee mug.

"What Owen said back in the car, about you not being my uncle…?" Aurora began, pausing to sip from her mug once again. "Was that him being pissy, or-"

Sadness fell over Jacks face, causing a pang in Aurora's heart. She knew the answer to her question before Jack even opened his mouth.

"I may not have been completely truthful with you, Aurora. But you must understand, it was all for your own good. Every lie I've told, it was to protect you. You must forgive me."

"Then now would be the time for you to tell me the truth. And _all_ of it."

Jack sighed. "I'm not sure where to even begin…"

"We can begin," Aurora yelled, slamming down her mug, "with you telling me who the hell you are and how you know my mother, seeing as you've been posing as her brother for the past nine years!"

Aurora hadn't meant to get snappy, but Jack seemed unfaltered. Jack licked his lips, seemingly weighing the words in his head before finally speaking.

"It was here, in Cardiff, that I met your mother. She was a lovely woman; brave, caring, beautiful…" a smile spread across Jack's face that made Aurora's stomach queesy. "You remind me a lot of her, Aurora. She had the same spunk to her."

"Yes, that's all great. But that's not telling me anything."

"Your mother and I met through a…mutual aquantance. What a character he was…it's no wonder your mother loved him so much. They traveled together to places you could never even imagne. When I first ran in to the pair together, they were mearly friends. But their relationship grew and flourished. Flourished enough to bear a child, at least."

Jack winked in Aurora's direction. The breath caught in her throat as the realization of Jack's words sunk in.

"He was my father?" she asked, her voice coming out just barely a whisper.

Jack merely nodded, the mug coming to his lips once more. Aurora found it hard to concentrate on anything but the flow of connections now clicking in her mind; her mug sat unattended on the table.

"Do you know how they met? My Mum and Dad, that is."

"He dropped out of the sky."

"_What_?"

Jack chuckled, "Ever heard of a Time Lord, Aurora?"

Suddenly, a deblitiating pang shot through Aurora's skull. She screamed out in agony as her vision rocked back and forth in a dizzying sway. Aurora's breath caught in her throat and she clutched at her chest with one hand, reaching out towards Jack with the other. Flashes of images dashed across her slowly fading eyesight, moving far too quickly for her to grasp and hold on to any one subject. She only caught glimpses of sights she could make no sense of; swirling galaxies, other-wordly creatures, a linguistics system made only of strange circles, and the same brunette man.

The flashes turned in to darkness, and Aurora felt her bodt slump as she slowly slipped away into unconciousness…

"Aurora! Aurora, can you hear me?"

A familiar voice lured Aurora back to clarity. The pain slowly dwindled away, and Aurora was able to open her eyes. When her sight finally steadied itself, Aurora found that she lay crumpled on the floor, Uncle Jack hovering over her. A pair of hands fussed about her forehead, pressing a cool rag over the spot that pounded the most. Aurora realized with shock and confusion that the hands did not belong to her uncle, but Owen. She quickly swatted them away.

"Get the hell away from me," she spat, scurrying to prop herself up on her arms.

"Aurora, lay down," Jack instructed.

"I'm fine!"

"You've just had a fit, blacked out, and bashed your head. That doesn't exactly qualify as 'fine'," growled Owen, pressing the rag to her forehead once again.

"Piss off!"

"Does this sort of thing happen often?" Jack asked, his voice calm and collected. Aurora rolled her eyes. There he was again, always changing the subject.

"No, at least, I don't think so. I get migranes, but they've never been that bad…my head feels like it's about to split!"

"And it'll only get worse unless you _lay back down._" Owen fussed, pushing her back down to the dusty marble floor.

With an aggravated sigh, Aurora lay back on the cold ground. She glared up at Owen as an arrogant grin spread across his face. Hatred swelled in Aurora's chest. If she did not feel as frail as a porcelin doll, she would have reached out and smacked that expression right off of him. Instead, she huffed and closed her eyes, lying still as Owen removed the cloth from her forehead.

"How bad is it, Doc?" she asked, unamused.

Since the first time Aurora had met him, Owen seemed to be at a loss for words.  
"It's…gone."  
"What do you mean, it's gone?" interjected Jack.  
"I literally mean it's _gone_. Bam, poof, gone!"

Aurora felt as a pair knocked Owen's hands away, only to run their fingers over her skin. Opening her eyes again, she was met with the sight of her Uncle. Jack's face was unusually tense, his jaw clenched and brow furrowed as if he was studying some horrible, disgusting beast on a slab, not a young girl's forehead.  
"You've both gone senile,"

Aurora pushed them both away, finally feeling strong enough to sit up. She pulled herself to her feet and limped back to her chair, ignoring the throbbing between her temples. She gulped down the last bit of water in her mug and turned to look at the two very confused men before her.

"Well, now that we've established that I'm fine and you're both just crazy, could we move on? I've still got a lot of questions that aren't going to be answered by you two just _standing_ there."

Unfortunetly, her words went unnoticed as Jack and Owen were now deep in a heated discussion. After many hushed murmurers and glares, Owen exploded.

"I know what I saw, Jack. She blacked out, her head slammed on that corner, and she fell to the ground bleeding everywhere! I've got the rag to prove it!"

Owen waved something of a deep crimson colour in Jack's face, causing the Captain to take a step backward. Queasiness rose in Aurora's stomach as she realized the cloth was not itself crimson, but instead covered in a dark and sticky liquid of the same color…blood. _Her _blood, to be exact. Her fingers traveled up to her temple, expecting to be met with the same substance that matted the cloth. Instead, her fingers came back clean. Now that didn't make any sense…she turned her attention back to Uncle Jack and Owen, catching the last few sentances of their dispute.

"-and a bloody nose! In the corridor! Whatever happened to that? It just went away. There's something weird about her, Jack!"

"Do you mind if we take this outside?" Jack asked in a hushed tone, motioning to the large glass doors that led out to the Hub's main room.

Owen nodded his head and the two exited the conference room without a single glance back at Aurora.  
"Right then, I'll just stay here…"

Aurora huffed and crossed her arms, settling down into the chair. Her fingers traveled back to her temple. The aching had finally stopped, but her head still swarmed with questions. The buzzing in her ears and swirling in her mind soon became umbearable. Aurora grew restless. First there was the knee bouncing, then finger tapping, until finally Aurora sprung from her chair, no longer willing to wait around for her uncle and his pissy operative to return.

She wretched open the glass doors and took a step out, prepared to go off on her uncle and his team-member for leaving her alone in there without a single bit of explanation. She expected them to feel sorry for her, take her back in the room and talk until everything was sorted she didn't expect, however, was the chaos she'd just walked into.

Owen stood with his back to Aurora; Jack off to the side leaning on a metal railing. The rest of the Torchwood team sat at their desks, observing the chaos unfolding before them. With an accusing finger pointing at Jack, Owen stepped forward.

"Oh, don't you try feeding me that whole 'Time Lords are the most powerful race in the universe!' bollocks. She's an _alien_. She's exactly what this Institute was created to protect against! But here you are, walking the enemy on in, having a sit and sipping coffee with it!"

Owen threw down a minilla envelope which scattered across the floor. Inside Aurora saw pictures of herself, from age 6 all the way up to just a few weeks ago. On the pictures were scribbled notes, illegible from where Aurora now crouched just outside the doors, eavesdropping on the argument. She watched as the woman named Toshiko arose from her chair and crossed over to Owen, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Owen, please be rational. This girl could be harmless, obviously Jack's chosen to trust her for a reason." spoke Gwen.

"Aw come on!" Owen yelled, tossing his hands in the air. "You really don't think it's a coincidence that the biggest Rift spike we've ever seen just happens to be coming from the exact orphanage where Jack's little _pet_ lives? She's doing something! And whatever it is, it's not as innocent as Jack is trying to make it out to be. Nothing ever is."

"You don't mean that…" said Gwen.

"There's something you're not telling us." Owen said, stepping over to Jack. "You never tell us anything! We're supposed to just wait around until this Doctor bloke drops in and saves us, when it's his own little bastard creating the mess in the first place?"

Aurora had heard enough. She darted from her hiding spot and across the main floor, salty hot tears threatening to spill from her eyes. Thankfully, she held them back long enough to reach the exit. Aurora distantly heard Jack call out her name as her palm smacked agaisnt the door censor, but she was far past caring. Without a single look back Aurora darted out into the corridor, the lump in her throat and raging threat of tears only growing larger. Once the door slid closed behind her, Aurora leaned against the cold stone wall and regained her composure.

Aurora knew she didn't have much time before Jack and his gang came billowing out of the door after her, but one wrong turn could send her wandering through the tunnels for hours. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Like watching a television screen, the winding maze of tunnels appeared behind Aurora's eyelids. She darted to the left, mapping out the pathways in her head and navigating through them perfectly until she was out in the fresh air. She pushed back another urge to cry and instead channeled it into energy, charging through the plaza as fast as her feet could carry her. She had no idea where she was going, but anywhere was better than where she was now.


End file.
